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Julie Tyios, the CEO of an online marketing firm called Red Juice Media, has tweeted her way onto the TTC's new customer service advisory panel.

She wants to help the city's troubled transit service adopt a little bit of WestJet airline's approach to friendly customer service and some technology that riders otherwise take for granted.

Tyios joins eight other business and community representatives, including one from WestJet, who will help Toronto hotelier Steve O'Brien review the TTC's customer service practices.

TTC officials posted an invitation Feb. 18 for riders to explain what they could bring to the panel. It was the 26-year-old entrepreneur's winning tweet that caught O'Brien's eye: "I excel in the art of getting things done. Communications and social media are my forte. Public transit is my ride."

The panel, expected to report in June on how the TTC can improve rider relations, was formed in response to a spate of bad publicity that followed a fare hike, token hoarding, a disastrous subway shutdown and published pictures of a sleeping subway collector.

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Tyios says she has the commuting savvy to match her online skills. Although she now takes only a short hop on the Queen car to her business, Red Juice Media, she used to travel all the way to Leslie St. and Sheppard Ave. from King and Jamieson.

She knows how despondent you can get when the streetcar or bus doesn't show up on a miserable day. Tyios says she'd like to see better notification to riders about delays. At the same time, she's been happy to share stories about good customer service through her online posts.

"I think it's a win-win situation when we all have a transit system we can rely on," she said Tuesday. "People like to focus on the negative but I like to see the positive."

Tyios, one of eight Twitter finalists, nailed the job in a chat with O'Brien, who runs the One King West Hotel and Residence.

"When we go through this I want to understand the good, the bad, the indifferent. She had a very good approach to the process and she's a TTC rider and she just wants a great experience," he said.

"TTC has 13,000 employees and there are a lot of great employees out there. This isn't just about bad employees," said O'Brien.

One of them would be Robert Culling, who has been officially commended three times in just 14 months of driving a bus – for service that he personally took for granted, such as waiting for someone at a stop.

A native Calgarian, Culling said he's looking forward to hearing more from Torontonians.

"The people of Toronto are entitled to good service," said Culling, 41, who drives several routes out of the Mount Dennis division along Keele, Weston Rd. and Eglinton Ave. He believes being approachable has helped him avoid a common complaint among workers: assault by members of the public. He's been yelled at, but never assaulted.

Councillor and TTC vice chair Joe Mihevc said the panel hopes to finish its work by June.

The TTC hasn't traditionally gathered advice from outside its own industry, and he hopes companies like WestJet will bring some new insight to the table.

"We need to feel comfort that this is an external review. It's not in-house," Mihevc said. "I'm hoping this will be a good Toronto conversation, not an inside conversation."

WestJet garners accolades for its customer service, and for panellist Tyson Matheson, the airline's key to success has been cultivating a happy workplace.

"One of the things where I think we have been so successful has been that we've got the hearts and minds of WestJetters," said Matheson, the airline's vice-president of people relations and culture. "Our philosophy is you take care of your people, they'll then in turn take care of the guests, who will then take care of the business."

Matheson said a key priority for the TTC will be getting Torontonians back onside. "I think the panel's objective is definitely to make recommendations to the TTC so it can begin to restore and bolster the public's confidence," he said.

Although he's been critical of the TTC, panellist Matt Blackett, who publishes Spacing magazine, which is devoted to public space and urbanism in Toronto, said the opportunity to have real input was too good to pass up.

"That's the mandate of Spacing, to help make Toronto better," he said of the ideas he's suggested to transit officials. "Each time I present them they say, `This is a great idea,' and that's the end of it."

Blackett tried to persuade the TTC to merchandise the station-stop buttons Spacing created. But officials wouldn't listen to his pitch, he said. Now there are about 120,000 buttons in circulation.

The panel's recommendations will be based on a review of employee customer service training; the TTC's complaint process; hiring criteria for frontline workers and a customer charter of rights.

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